The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1887-12-28


could buy them cheapest. A part OF this
tax is capitalized and goes into the cost Of
the roads; the remainder increases the OPP
Grating expenses to that extent.
ga more striking example than this of
| the real character Of the protective system
may not be found, and 1t ought to serve
both as a revelation and warning. AL
these vast profits, forced by law out of the
pockets Of the whole people, lave gone
| into few hands, and have, in few years,
built up enormous private wealth at the
| public expense. They were, and they con-
| tinue to be, an assessment upon every mile
OF travel made and every pound of freight
/ carried, for the benefit OF q specially favored
and very small class. Yet, though larger
| in degree, they are not different in kind
| from countless other impositions of the
tariff to which the country is indebted for
the startling inequalities of fortune wit
| messed by the present generation of Amer
leans. The old English statute that, under
rigid penalties. required the dead to be
buried In woolens, for the purpose of en-
couraging the maDufacture of textile fab
RIGS, was scarcely more grotesque than are
some of the jobs which have crept into our
tariff, which, il they were not so unjust
and audacious, would be laughable."
FLUCTUATIoE OF VASES ANALYZED.
| Next Mr.. Watterson takes up and very
| thoroughly analyses fluctaation of wages.
in spite OF our so called protection, the
American wage-earner today feels his po-
sition to be so precarious that he is in con-
slant dread OF losing it, and that fear a.
adroitly played upon by the interested
beneficiaries of high taxes When they ring
the changes Of 'Europe's paper labor
| Protected as we are, and have been, why
| does the American workman to-day make
more complaint than the English or the
French workman? II protection gave con-
slant work and good wages, as is claimed,
| why the clamor, the strikes, the l3ckouts
and the antagonismP Wages advanced in
America from 1885 to 1850 STEADILY through
| ell tariff changes, and during a period of
| fourteen years, when we had q tariff for
revenue only. From 1850 TO 1888, during
a p Rod of war and 9oancial demoraliza-
| ito and political excitement, the advance
cor inued, bat with periods of fiuctuat.on
mo plainly msrked, registering IN the
| tw' aty-three years an increase of 2S SO per
| cel-.
IN Great Britain, unders near approach
to free trade, we find in the principal me.
| chaDical industries an advance from 1850
10 1883 OF 80 Is per cent, and-what was
| not the case in anything like the same ex.
tent in ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS by mar.
Telous expansion of export of manufactur-
ed goods.
Except for our vast area OF cheap, fer
| tile, and unoccupied lands, we should have
had far greater want among our work-peo.
pie than they have ever yet known, and
| when there are no more such lands open
| to occupation, who shall say that the load
We have put upon ourselves will not be
| heavier than we can bear?
"As shall be clearly shown. the wages of
labor In the United States are fixed by the
wages of the unprotected farm hand, not
| OF the protective factory operative. 1t is
cheap land, not protective duties that pro-
duces high wages, completely retuting the
old protectionist theory that high prices
| make high wages, and that low prices make
low wages High prices have often CO.
existed and now co-exist with high wages.
This Is true even with respect to nominal
wages, /. g. to wages reckoned in money 1t.
is still truer with respect to real wages,
i. e.. to wages estimated in the food or
| other things which the workman buys with
his money wages"
It is very clearly demonstrated by Mr..
Wstterson that a tax which enhances the
cost of machinery and raw material must
operate to decrease wages. 1.-THE English
| workman" he adds, docs not dread cheap
labor. His antagonism is expert labor.
1t is the iuexpert pauper labor of Europe
which is overmatched by the skilled, high
priced labor of England. Our chief Euro.
pean rival is England. Yet the spectre OF
the pauper labor of Europe, which England
| despises walks his round as sentinel for
| protection in America"
BLAzNEIsM AND GEoRGEIsM THE EXTREMES.
In conclusion, the labor movement is
| thoughtfully discussed, Mr.. Watterson
contending that the safe ground lies be-
tween the extremes of Blaineism on the
one side and 6eorgeism on the ether. The
| Kentucky editor is rated as a free trader
by protective organs. This is an explicit
statement of his real position, with moral
lesson affixed thereto.
mo one entitled to the name of states
man would advise the precipltate substi-
tuition of a tariff for revenue only for the
system of bounties, denominated pro-
lection, which we have maintained for a
quarter of century. That clause of the
tariff plank in the last National Democratic
platform which pledged the party to revise
the tariff in spirit of fairness to all iu-
terests, was as sincerely as it was uuani-
mously adopted. In making reductions il
could be the purpose of no responsible
party to iDjure the industries Of the
country, but the rather to promote their
healthy growth; and it being true that
many industries have come to rely upon
legislation for successful continuance
changes in our revenue laws should be at
every step regardful of the labor and CAPT
tai involved. All revenue reformers agree
to that. That which they insist upon is
that We shall 0egin the work, already too
long deferred, OF putting the war tariff on
peace footing, and that to the process of
the revision and reduction shall be applied
the wisdom of economic experience, the
principles OF the constitution, and the
equities of Just taxation, which must be
general and not special.
| The manufacturers, who think they
cannot live and prosper without the sub
sidits which they enjoy under the tariff,
and W ho refuselto listen to the Just demands
of reform, should take to their minds and
hearts lesson out of the darkest chapter
of American history. The slave owner
thought he could not raise sugar, rice and
cotton at a profit without the protection
he enjoyed in slave labor. Out of that
error rose the gigantic and baleful power
which through fifty years threatened our
national life. Beginning upon the lines OF
an economic fallacy, the institution thus
arrayed against the fundamental principle
of our republican fabric, at once illogical
and inbuman, developed into an oligarohy
stronger than the union or the States. All
the while it was a thorough delusion; as
system of labor. clumsy and costly; as
a political influence, despotic; as a moral
force, destructive. Like the protectionists
of today, lis friends would listen to moth
ing, and in blood and flame it was swept
out of existence. Ard now what do we
see?-such productivity under frse labor
| rrao rauar droopnad nf nndor slave